Monthly Archives: March 2015

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To celebrate the kitchen organization section of The Kitchn Cookbook we’ve partnered up with Zwilling J.A. Henckels to give away a sweet prize package worth over $300 each week during the month of March (hello, knives!). Here’s a look at the final winner of the Happy Kitchn contest and why we loved this particular photo.

With roast lamb at the center of your Easter table, you could go in so many directions with the dishes to serve alongside. You could keep the menu feeling classic with Parker House rolls and Hasselback potatoes — or take things in an entirely unexpected direction with braised spring radishes and a light couscous salad. So many choices!

To help make it easier for you, here are 10 of our very favorite side dishes to serve with a platter of lamb.

Whether you’re cooking a whole leg of lamb, a Frenched rack, or lamb chops, it’s worth knowing what the internal temperature of the lamb should be so that you don’t under or overcook it. But it’s not anything to stress about, as the temperatures for lamb are the same as for beef!

If the thought of kale scares you, then let this be the dish that changes your mind! Think creamy, buttery goodness mixed with delicious soft greens. Like spinach, kale is packed with nutrients, but doesn’t wilt down quite as much as spinach when cooked, so it is a great alternative.

Every spring, I promise I’m going to share a recipe for chopped liver. And every year I lose steam, perhaps because there are probably few more divisive foods than organs, or maybe because my instructions on the matter are quite short: just make Ina Garten’s. Ina can do no wrong, and I like to amuse myself by imagining that I’m only eight bestselling cookbooks and three homes in two countries away from basically being her when I grow up. (Sure Deb. Okay.)

But I like this year’s distraction the most, which came from me wondering what a vegetarian chopped liver might entail. The first thing it would need to do is lose the word liver, so not to scare away children of any age. Second, I hoped it would embrace rather humble ingredients like mushrooms that when cooked down to concentrated nubs, pack an unexpectedly fragrant and earthy complexity. And finally, although there are recipes for wild mushroom pâté from one end of the web to the other, I was hoping it would have a Jewish/Eastern European vibe, reminiscent of the promised chopped liver — rich, ample browned onions, making use of hard-boiled eggs, and served on matzo crackers, likely with pickles.

Happy almost-Easter, Kitchn readers! Looking for a beautiful, natural way to dye your eggs this year? Forget the technicolor dyes and look to your pantry, because onion skins are all you need to produce lovely, variegated-toned eggs.